Living at a Pace That Kills
by TracyM
Summary: Buffy's life after the fall of Sunnydale takes a tragic turn, turning her to a hunter.
1. Chapter 1

"Okay, Blondie, I'm cutting you off."

My attention focused from the drink in front of me to the man standing behind the bar. He was a burly biker type, probably about thirty years my senior. His immensely muscular figure fit the dark environment perfectly. He was more than capable of handling any problems that came his way, which I assumed were rather frequent. Had we been in a typical situation, someone my size would have listened to him. But I was different. I could have cut him down physically quite easily, despite my small stature.

Most likely, I appeared out of place. From what I could see, I was the only woman in the place. It was difficult for me to recall the actual hour, since the bar was pitch black dark, illuminated only bar the several television sets on the walls. The majority of the clientele consisted of bikers, who were constantly bitching about the fact that it was nearly winter, also known as the motorcycle off season. Many of them had tried their hardest to pick me up, but were then put off by my tremendously cold demeanor.

"No, you're not," I growled, not amused.

"Don't mess with me, little girl. You've already had far more than you should and I'm not taking responsibility for you ending up in the emergency room. So it's time you pay up and go home. Sleep it off."

Leaping from the barstool, I grabbed him by the collar of his faded black t-shirt and pulled him close enough to be able to smell the stale cigarettes on his breath. His eyes bulged out and he tried to pull away, but I refused to let go.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he choked out.

I could see the vein in his forehead surfacing, making itself incredibly clear. His face was flushed red. I dropped him then and jumped over the bar, grabbed the bottle of tequila, and went back to my barstool. The man climbed back to his feet, stared at me for a brief moment, and then ignored me.

It had been a year. The difference one those three hundred and sixty five empty days made amazed me. I couldn't say that things had been perfect before that. Being a Slayer came with its own set of problems for a well balanced person. My life was the polar opposite of that. Since the death of my mother, I had helped to take care of my sister, a girl who had been created not through traditional means, rather by monks. Due to my lack of a real life, I hadn't been able to gain the skills that would have allotted me a career. That was only the beginning.

The only man I had truly loved was not a man at all. He was a vampire, the very thing I was trained to kill. As I had grown, I hadn't really learned much in the relationship category. One of the hardest things in my life had been my death. Once I thought it was finally over and I was at peace, I was pulled back to Earth. Although I had worked my hardest to deal with it, I still had some difficulties from time to time.

Finally, there came the end of Sunnydale and the end of its Hellmouth. Every potential had been activated, allowing there to be multiple Slayers, rather than just one. We had scattered months after the Hellmouth had been destroyed, moving to several areas of the world to protect people from all the evils one could imagine. I had moved north to Washington, settling in Seattle at first. We later moved to Vancouver when I heard of a larger nest of demons than usual. It was one that would take at least a couple of years to get through.

The nest had been a trap. By the time I realized what was happening, it was too late. Had I known what I currently knew, I never would have brought the people I considered my family with me. It turned out that a gate to Hell had been opened shortly before we arrived, allowing demons to escape into our world, and creating more problems than ever before. All the Potentials had been killed, something that had not been brought to my attention until I was face to face with a black eyed redhead, who was covered in my sister's blood.

"…_I saved you for last. After all, you're the chosen one, Buffy. No matter how many of those girls you trained and called actual Slayers, you know it was only you."_

_I cringed hard, trying not to show how much she was hurting me. I hadn't felt that kind of pain in years. The thing had me pinned against the wall of the kitchen, making it impossible for me to move. My insides felt on fire._

"_They're all dead, you know? Because of you. You and that little witch friend of yours," she said, pointing back to Willow's mangled corpse lying mere feet from us. "You're the only one left. Again."_

"_There's another…" I said, uttering a weak laugh._

"_Oh, you mean the fiery little Bostonian?" she asked with a wide grin._

_Whatever small gleam of happiness I must have had in my expression vanished._

"_I have to give her credit, she gave a hell of a fight. But much like the rest of them, she's gone too. She was loyal to you though. I had half of her lower intestine torn out and she still wouldn't give up your location. Not that it mattered. I've found you now."_

The thing had killed everyone around me. Not a single shred of my former life existed any longer. I was alone. In all probability, it would have killed me as well had it not been for them.

"_Killing you is a big deal for me. I mean, the witch was one thing. She was a very strong creature, but this is different. Killing Slayers is a real step up. And more than one…" _

_The smile contorted into something wicked and vile._

"_You piece of shit. You'd better hope I don't get down from here-"_

_I felt my insides twist suddenly, something that released a loud bellow from me. Tears coursed down my cheeks, no matter how much I tried to hold them back. I looked past it, to the bodies of my loved ones. They were torn to pieces. I could hardly recognize them anymore. My focus was quickly back on the thing before me as the muscles in my stomach tore apart. My skin was beginning to split. That was when I heard the door break down two rooms away._

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't remember exactly what had happened next, at least not clearly. I remembered two men, one very tall and the other one not so much. They looked to be fairly close to my own age. What surprised me is how they handled the thing ripping me to pieces. They had large guns strapped to their backs, but a small one killed the demon with a single bullet. It made no sense to me. I couldn't imagine who they were or what kind of gun would kill such a thing.

I would never find out. I woke in a hospital days later with my stomach stitched back together. In an effort to avoid any questions, I had left the hospital and the city the same day. Since then, I had been on the run, feeling the sense of evil on my heels. Something was after me, something I had been unable to defeat the first time around. I had to find those men.


	2. Chapter 2

My head was sore again. It made me long for my healthier days when I had a somewhat healthy life. Despite the oddities of my existence, I had always maintained a decent sleep schedule and diet. The jaded attitude I had gained subsequent to my loss had forced me into an overall self disdain. I was horrifically depressed and the only treatment I could find for it was alcohol and the occasional one night stand. I had become the opposite of what I had ever believed I could be.

The afternoon sun peeked through the thick curtains of the cheap motel. It had to have been at least four o'clock. I hadn't gotten in until after dawn, using the darkness to kill every vampire I could find. There were more around than I had ever seen, but they were scattered. Their presence followed no logical pattern which frightened me slightly. It seemed to be chaos, something I had been able to handle at one point in time, but felt no longer capable of. There was no one to catch me when I fell. I was alone.

After showering, I pulled on a long T-shirt and sat on the bed I had made for no reason other than the unkempt nature of the room was making me crazy. Lazily, I flipped through the channels on the television, one that consisted of many more than I would have imagined. As of then, I was on the slight outskirts of Chicago, just barely outside the downtown area. My original source of transportation had been the trains, which contained more vamps than most people would think. The previous night, however, I had obtained a Harley Davidson, the product of grand theft auto.

"…seem to have no real pattern, but have kept many Chicago residents in their homes…"

My mind switched back to the television, which was running an afternoon news broadcast. A reporter of East European descent with long dark hair and beautifully tanned skin was reporting a gruesome story. Beneath her read the headline, "SEVEN DEAD IN MIDNIGHT MASSACRE". I nearly laughed at the contrast, finding it grossly inappropriate that such beauty should represent something so repulsive.

"Three men and four women were found gruesomely murdered in what witnesses described as a satanic style murder. Police have neglected to inform us of the details, waiting for further information from the coroners…"

I pulled my attention from her words and focused on the imagery being splashed across the screen. It amazed me that the network had the audacity to display such things at such an early hour and could only guess the kind of publicity it would bring them. Brief shots of a downtown nightclub were shown, with sheet covered bodies laying amongst broken furniture and shattered glass. Suddenly, it jumped to a clip of a girl who couldn't have been any older than seventeen, crying and shaking.

"There was just…so much blood…oh, God!"

She broke into a fit of sobs as someone pulled her from the view of the camera.

_Blood?_

Vamps didn't leave blood, that was for damn sure. The usage of the word 'satanic' really did nothing for me either. Although it perked the interest of many people, I could think of nothing but how often it had been overused. The media loved that word. It increased their ratings significantly. There could be something as slight as words written in blood at a location that made witnesses jump to the satanic murder claim, when in reality, it had nothing to do with what would be considered a ritualistic murder. Details were important in such a case.

I sighed and looked down at one of my bags of weapons sitting next to the bed. One of my many stakes was poking out the side. It would be of no use in such a case. Underneath the bed was a double barreled shotgun and a .44 Magnum was in my side drawer. Until then, I had used them for safety. I had pulled the .44 on two different men, but they weren't demons. They were simply the type of humans who selectively filtered the word 'no' out of their hearing. I still had yet to find out how guns could be used against demons. Sighing, I decided it was time to get ready to go out for the evening.

"Hey there, cutie, how'd you like to-"

"No," I shot flatly at the second guy who had tried to hit on me in the past fifteen minutes.

Unlike the first, he went away quickly and was off to his next victim. The other had been kind of a pain in the ass, trying technique after technique to get me to talk to him. I wasn't in the mood.

I had found the club that the people had died in the prior night, but it was shut down for obvious reasons. It most likely wouldn't be opened for weeks and even then, the owners would have to filter out the people who were there simply to gawk. So rather than lurk around the people investigating the area, I was in the bar of a neighboring night club I wasn't familiar with, keeping an eye on every person that walked through the door. The place was very lively, full of people close to my age and younger, dancing and drinking colorful cocktails. It was close enough to the other club that I felt I may end up running into someone who had seen something, regardless of their involvement.

I wasn't given much trouble, aside from the typical pick up lines. The situation was a real catch twenty-two in that manner. Had I noticed anyone who I really wanted to scrutinize, I was dressed and made up to keep them talking to me. Still, tight jeans and a tiny sparkling black top that showed off nearly every muscle on my body sent the remainder of the patrons to me as well. Not only was it annoying, it made it more difficult for me to keep my eyes on the rest of the people. I had been there for nearly two hours and had seen nothing. The sun was close to setting however, something that was always an advantage for me.

"Hey, honey, do you need anything?"

I looked to the bartender, a girl who reminded me very much of Faith. She was nearly as muscular as me, but her facial features were darker, housing dark eyes and long black eyelashes. Tattoos lined her long burly arms, mostly black with a slight hint of color. Her lips were huge, but I had yet to see her smile.

"I…don't know," I said, looking down at my empty glass.

Names of drinks eluded me. I had been too busy watching people.

"I'll make you something good," she said, smiling for the first time.

"Thanks," I grinned back at her.

"No problem. Are you waiting for someone or something?"

"What?"

She pulled out multiple liquor bottles and combined them into a small glass.

"You look like you are trying to find someone."

I sighed, feeling my cover had been blown.

"Not really. Do you know anything about what happened down the street last night?"

The girl froze momentarily and I could see different thoughts shifting through her mind through the expressions varying on her face. For a second, I was worried. She looked terrified.

"You're not a cop, are you?"

The way she said it was so cold.

"Do I look like a cop to you?"

She set the drink in front of me, a concoction of God only know what that had turned to a shade of dark pink. I took a sip of it and realized it could have caused serious problems as the taste of alcohol was entirely absent. I could have drank them all night.

"Go sit over there," she said, nodding towards the area across the room at a series of large red couches next to the dance floor. "I have a break in five minutes. I'll come talk to you then."

"I was working here when it happened."

The girl, whose name I still didn't know, was sitting next to me on one of the couches I had forced an angry party of five off of. It was in the corner of the club, a quieter and more secluded area. I was on my second little pink drink and she was drinking something clear that seemed to calm her nerves.

"Did you see or hear anything…?"

"My roommate works there. She told me what happened, but you cannot tell anyone. She is too scared to even talk to the cops, okay?"

"What happened?"

She took another swig of her drink. The scent of it made my nose turn up in disgust, which I did my best to hide.

"She was in the backroom when it all…started…"

"When what started?"

There was a moment of silence between the two of us and I thought I heard her swallow before speaking.

"She said that these three people came into the bar - two men and a woman. But they weren't people."

Her voice was becoming quieter as she spoke.

"How so?" I asked, not knowing how else to put it without saying too much.

"Their eyes...she said they were solid black. She could see them through a small window in the back. I guess when they came in, everything just came to a halt. Several people simply left, but the ones that remained stood around, looking at them. She said everyone appeared very afraid. The fear she felt is what kept her in the back room."

I watched patiently as she bit down hard on her lip and turned away briefly. The tanned skin of her face had paled slightly.

"They lined up seven people. I guess they were randomly chosen, but she said she couldn't really tell. That's when it all happened. She just saw blood and heard people screaming in ways that sounded unnatural. The sounds made her run further into the back, but she couldn't get outside because someone had locked the back door. So she hid in the bathroom, crying until she realized that the screaming had stopped. When she felt like she could go out there, she saw that the seven people had been shredded. It looked like their skin had been split apart. Everyone in the club was sobbing and the three things that had done it all were gone."

I thought back to that demon that I had encountered in my kitchen a year earlier and felt the faded scar on my stomach. There was nothing I could do with that information in the club. I needed to get back to the motel and go through the books I had gathered from Giles' home after he had been killed. Whatever had been following me, I felt it was close. I stood up and looked down to the girl, who I felt tremendously sorry for. She had reason to be as scared as she looked.

"Thank you," I said, reaching into my pockets and pulling out a fifty dollar bill. "Take this."

She looked ready to protest, but I beat her to it.

"Consider it a tip. And take care."

I wished I could have said more to her, but I really had no idea what to say. There was nothing that could make anything better at that point. So without another word, I left the club and kick started the Harley. As I rolled down the alley and made my way to the street, a large black car, some sort of Chevy, pulled in front of me. I hit the brake so hard that the front tire swerved slightly, sending me flying to the ground.

"God, drive much?" I yelled at the man who leapt from the driver's side and pulled me to my feet.

I brushed off sand and gravel from my jean, annoyed. There were several small tears in them, which I really didn't care for.

"It's a one way, Shorty," he said, as a cocky smile covered his face, "and you're going in the wrong direction."

I shoved him away from me, more frustrated with myself than anything. Contents of my bag were scattered across the street, including holy water and stakes. I gathered them together frantically and thrust them into the tan canvas bag that normally hung from the back of the Harley.

"Stakes?" he asked, as if I would answer him.

When I pulled the bike up and straddled it for the second time, he stood in front of it.

"Get out of my way."

"You shouldn't be down here. It's dangerous."

"You don't say?" I shot back.

The two of us stood staring at each other while I tried to figure out why he looked familiar to me.

"Dean, get in the car," I heard from the passenger side of the car.

I used the moment of distraction to back up and ride around him, onto the street, and back to the motel.


	3. Chapter 3

I was up to my waist in books. I hated research, especially when my friends were no longer with me. They had made it so much easier and bouncing ideas off one another made for quicker results. Simply skimming through pages of old text, much of which I couldn't translate, was doing nothing but aggravating me. I sighed and slammed my current reading material shut. It was half past midnight and I hadn't set off to patrol yet. I was growing very tired, but knew it had to be done.

Once I had changed into comfortable jeans and a light sweater and filled my bag with more stakes, I was on the dark street. Just to be safe from the rest of the city's citizens, I had strapped my .44 to my ankle alongside my boot and clipped a small bottle of Mace to my belt. Although I was strong enough to get through just about any situation, I still felt the need to be extra careful. Things had been hard enough with extra demonic activity. I didn't need to worry about the mentally offset humans.

The streets were full of nothing but mortal beings, which didn't surprise me all that much. I made my way down to the train station, an area I had found to be packed with thirsty vampires. At that time of the night, most people did their most to steer clear of the station, especially in the darker areas of town. I bought twenty dollars worth of tickets and hopped on the train, one that appeared virtually abandoned.

For almost a half an hour, I sat alone, riding from stop to stop. While I sat in the far end of the car, I wondered how any regular human being would think it was a good idea to ride one of them at such an hour. As strong as I knew myself to be, I still felt slightly intimidated. Running my hand over my bag of weapons, I swallowed hard and listened attentively for any movement throughout the car. That's when I heard it.

"Slayer…"

I rolled my eyes before I turned to see a pudgy short vampire dressed like he had just stepped out of 1989. His medium length brown hair that may have looked decent in life was cut into a mullet of small curls. He was dressed in black leather pants and a denim vest covered in buttons advertising various bands. I nearly laughed at the sight of him.

"Good God, where did you come from?"

He scowled at me in what I could have sworn was an attempt to frighten me, but I laughed.

"Seriously, you do know that we're past the millennium, right? Fashion has made some…vast improvements, to say the least."

He said nothing and I wondered if he even understood what I was talking about. Growing sick of baiting him verbally, I decided to merely get to it and grabbed a stake from my bag. He straightened up at the sight of it and his dark eyes widened.

"Let's do this," I said, raising it somewhat above my waist.

He nodded and came at me quicker than I had anticipated. Usually the heavier ones were slower than the thin ones, but he was fast. His fist came in contact with my chin, knocking me to the steel floor. I flinched, but bounced back and leapt to my feet. Spinning around, I found him on the opposite side of the car, standing above me on the edge of one of the seats. With the stake gripped tightly in my right hand, I jumped up beside him. We went back and forth for what felt like forever, balancing on the edge of the seats, moving all the way down the car.

"Why don't you just admit defeat?" he asked, his fangs glistening in his sneer.

"Fuck you. I don't admit defeat."

I hit him hard then, sending him onto the floor. Before he had the chance to get back up, I moved to the floor and crawled atop him, holding the stake high before driving it down to his chest. Surprisingly, he snatched it out of my hand just before it hit his body. Taking advantage of my distracted moment, he rolled out from beneath me and climbed atop me.

"Shit…" I grimaced, looking around frantically for my bag. '

It was three seats down from us and with him on top of me there was no way for me to reach it. I kicked him hard enough to send him flying off of me and tore down the car. When I looked back however, I noticed he had vanished, much to my discontent. Losing one was as bad as being bitten, in my opinion. Snatching the bag, I threw open the door to the car and ran at top speed through the next few, looking everywhere for him.

The sound of his heels clicking on the train floor filled my ears, telling me he was relatively close, but there was also another sound. Cars away, there were people. Not just one person, but at least two. If I didn't get to them in time, I would have the blood of two more innocent people on my hands. Just as I reached the end of the fifth car, I saw him through the glass of the next one.

Inside the sixth car stood the vampire behind two men, one of them being the man that had hit the Harley the previous night. I didn't have time to figure out why they were both there because the terribly dressed creature was directly behind them, set to attack. Just as he was about to advance on them, I dove at him, landing on his shoulders and flipping him over. He landed hard on his back and I drove the stake into his heart as swiftly as possible.

"What the hell…?"

The two men turned to look at me and the dusty remainders of what had nearly killed them. I stared back at them sheepishly, not sure of what to say. Wanting to avoid an uncomfortable conversation, I turned and ran back through the cars, hoping it would stop soon.

"Hey, wait!" I heard behind me.

They were chasing after me faster than I had thought possible. The moment I entered the last car of the train, it came to a screeching halt, sending me falling to the floor. Before they were able to catch up to me, I pulled myself to my feet and ran out the door. They were already on the platform, further down the line, a sight that made me tear up the stairs.

"Would you just slow down?"

Whoever they were, they were growing irritated with me. I didn't even know what area of the city I was in, having gone over the entire line multiple times. The slight concern diverted my attention to the point that I didn't even notice them standing right in front of me when I hit the top of the stairs. The second my foot landed on the wooden floor of the station, I ran directly into one of them. I looked up to see the one that had run his car into me looking down at me.

"Oh, you again…" I muttered, not knowing what else to really say.

He said nothing in response to that and instead went right to the matter at hand.

"Who the hell are you?"

"That's none of your damn business," I said, turning away from him to leave the station and try to find my way back to the motel.

Before I could leave however, the taller of the two of them stepped in front of me, blocking my path.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"We just want to talk to you," he said, his tone a bit softer than the other's.

"Who says I want to talk?"

"Look, we just want to-"

Faster than he could anticipate it, I tore my .44 from my ankle holster, cocked it, and held it against his broad face. His eyes widened in fear and he backed up with his hands up.

"Jesus, lady," the other one shot at me, "we just wanted to talk. Back off him."

I didn't lower the weapon, not wanting them to have the advantage. My lack of obedience forced him to pull his weapon of choice on me, a double barreled shotgun. Although he appeared to be the type to be able to put a hole through my head before I had the chance to squeeze the trigger, I wouldn't back down. Instead, I shoved past the tall one and made my way out to the street. It was incredibly dark out there, telling me we were far from the city.

"This is just great…" I scowled, looking around.

It took about fifteen minutes before the lights of the city showed up and I was able to flag a cab to take me to the motel. Once I reached it, I quickly hid the bag of stakes under the bed. Even after I had changed into pajamas, I still kept my gun close. There was a small tingling of paranoia residing in the back of my mind, keeping my body awake until dawn. As the clock ticked past five in the morning, I heard a foreseen knock on the door. By that time, I was too tired to care that there was someone trying to get into the room. My bones literally ached and all I wanted was to fall asleep.

"Go away!"

For a second, there was nothing but silence. I was foolish enough to believe that whoever was on the other side had actually decided to leave. Perhaps it was the growing exhaustion that was causing my mind to blur around the edges because I heard another knock soon after. Exasperated, I seized the gun, cocked the hammer, and stormed over to the door. I pulled it open slightly, keeping the chain on the lock.

Standing outside was the man who had pulled the shotgun on me. We stared into one another's eyes for a solid moment, both trying to predict the other's next move.

"What do you want?" I finally said, still watching him intently.

"To talk."

"So that requires weaponry these days, huh?"

"I'm not the only one holding a gun here. Don't try to pretend you don't have anything behind that door. I wasn't born yesterday."

I sighed, frustrated.

"So? Talk."

I heard a groan escape him, but he appeared to relax, lowering his gun.

"What do you know about what happened at that club downtown?"

I said nothing, an action resulting in another groan from him.

"Fine, you want to be that way, that's how it will be. But tell me, what do you know about a girl named Buffy Summers?"


	4. Chapter 4

My body reacted to his question faster than my mind. Without first closing the door, I threw it open, tearing the chain from its base and busting apart the frame. His shotgun was taken from him and dropped to the ground beside me before he could counter my motions. I clutched hold of him arm and yanked him into the room, knocking him harshly to the ground. He tried to say something to me, but I was quick, sitting on his chest and holding the muzzle of the gun against his left temple.

"Who are you?" I practically spat. "And don't lie. I'm not in the mood for it."

"Would you ease up on that thing?" he asked with a trembling finger pointing at the gun.

He didn't appear very frightened, but he knew he was at a disadvantage. I ignored his request completely.

"Name. Now."

He sighed and carefully reached into the side pocket of his dark jeans, pulling out a thick leather wallet. I swiped it from him and flipped it open to see an Illinois driver's license.

"Kerry King?" I asked, looking at him aggravated. "You couldn't come up with something better?"

"That's funny coming from someone named Buffy."

I snapped the wallet shut and tossed it aside.

"That's my real name, mind you. And how in the hell do you know who I am?"

"Because we've been tracking you."

"We?"

For a brief instant, I was preoccupied, wondering if there was someone following behind him. My mind filled with the image of the taller one, the one that I had held a gun to only hours earlier. I shouldn't have been so stupid. He took advantage of my sidetracked mind and knocked the gun from my hand before his right fist slammed into my chin. I nearly blocked the blow, but wasn't quick enough. Before I knew it, I was sitting with my back against the bed, starring down the barrel of my own weapon.

"Now, you have to understand that I am not here to hurt you," he said, not moving the gun.

"You've got a real funny way of showing that," I said, nodding at the gun.

I wanted to get it out of his hand, but couldn't see any feasible action at that point. My body was throbbing from fatigue and if he took a chance and shot me, I wouldn't get far. There were many things I was capable of, but dodging bullets wasn't one of them. So I pulled my knees to my chin and watched him carefully. Unexpectedly, his features relaxed and he appeared genuinely concerned.

"Are you all right?" he asked, reaching out to touch my chin.

I pushed him away.

"I'm stronger than you. But you probably already know that. So talk. What do you want? And how do you know my name?"

I hadn't noticed until then that he had set the gun down. It was sitting on the run down once cream-colored carpet beside the TV. Part of my mind was screaming at me to grab it, but I chose to ignore it. He had set it aside for a reason and I didn't think he was going to go back for it anytime soon.

"Last year, about this time, my brother and I were in Vancouver."

I flinched slightly, as the mere sound of the city's name brought the horrible memories back to me as if I was still there.

"We came upon a house where several people had been murdered. Not just murdered either; eviscerated. We were too late to help them, but when we got there, a girl was left. That girl was dropped off at the emergency room by us because we simply didn't have the opportunity to call the police without looking like a couple of killers."

"Why are you being so hypothetical about this? You obviously already know about me. I want to know how."

"Your sister – she told us."

I felt as if I had been kicked in the stomach.

"Dawn?"

I didn't even recall forming the word, if I could have called it a real word. It just seemed to slip from my being, a fragment of hope lost long ago. Something wasn't right. My entire being changed with that one syllable. The moment I said it however, I saw a look in his eyes that told me nothing had really changed. He lowered his head then, unable to look me in the face.

"We thought everyone had died, but she somehow had managed to pull through. Don't ask me how. It was probably just dumb luck."

"Dawn's…," the words were caught and I couldn't force them out. "Dawn's…alive?"

He looked up then and sadly shook his head.

"No, not anymore."

Large unstoppable tears flowed out of me, coursing down my cheeks faster than I could wipe them away. It seemed cruel really, to feel that I had lost her a second time. I wanted to stop crying, but I couldn't. Abrasively, I ran the sleeves of my pajamas over my face, trying to dry it. I could see my face reflected in the mirror across the room. It was reddened and stained from tears. Such vulnerability was so unattractive.

"What do you mean?" I stammered through a closed throat.

Not knowing him at all, I normally would have found it difficult to read his expressions, but the look on his face was one of sheer empathy. He didn't want to tell me anymore, even though he knew he had to.

"JUST TELL ME!"

He recoiled at my strident tone, but wisely continued.

"A few days later, we went back to the hospital to see if we could talk to you to see if you knew what had happened. But the doctor led us to your sister since you had…mysteriously disappeared…"

"What the hell were you doing going to see either of us? And who are you people?" I demanded, suddenly feeling very violated. I still didn't know who he was and it seemed all he was bringing me were reasons to question him.

"What do you want me to answer first?"

I settled down a bit, knowing how irrational and harsh I must have sounded. He nodded faintly and carried on.

"When we saw her, we weren't even sure if she was going to be able to speak. To be honest, I don't know how she was still alive. The doctors weren't too sure either, other than she hadn't lost enough blood to die. But they told us it would only be a matter of time before she would succumb to her injuries."

In an effort to persuade my mind from imaging her suffering like that – alone, no less – I bit down hard enough on my lip to draw blood. The pain gave my mind something else to center on.

"When we saw her, she gave us this."

He reached over to where I had thrown his wallet, dug through it for a moment, and then pulled out what looked to be a folded napkin. Leaning over, he handed it to me carefully. I waited to take it, wondering what it could possibly be, and then snatched it almost greedily. Unfolding it, I saw a message written in scrawled pen.

FIND BUFFY.

It was Dawn's handwriting, or at least some sickly looking desperate form of it. I tried not to think of what had made it so difficult for her to write out something so simply. It told me two things though. First, the person sitting before me was here to help me. Second, whoever he was, Dawn had felt him trustworthy. That had to be worth something. I folded the napkin up and stuffed it into my bag.

"So tell me, Kerry King, what's your real name?"


	5. Chapter 5

"So, you…what? Do this for fun?"

The man I had come to know as Dean Winchester had decided the best course of action was to get some breakfast so we could sort things out in a somewhat more comfortable manner. It was then six in the morning and I was far beyond exhausted. My body didn't even feel real. I had told him that I wasn't hungry, which couldn't have been further from the truth. That didn't stop him from leaving the motel, only to return minutes later with a bag of greasy breakfast sandwiches made of egg and sausage, the fast food equivalent of hash browns, and two very large cups of coffee. He reminded me of a little boy, wolfing down the food in such an eager way. Had we been in better circumstances, I probably would have laughed. A small grin had to suffice.

"No," he said, his mouth still full of food, "it's not for fun."

"Really? Because you see, I didn't choose to do this shit. I can think of about a million different things I would rather be doing with my life."

I watched him swallow and clear his throat. For a moment, he was silent and looked very downtrodden.

"Demons killed several people I loved. People I still love to this day."

"So, you thought you'd work on your own vengeance against them? I can't tell you how stupid that is. I was at least born into this. I have the strength for it. You could get yourself killed so easily."

He appeared to take that into consideration before taking a long drink of his coffee.

"I can't argue with that. But I was raised in this. It's practically all I know."

I swallowed a piece of my fatty sandwich and wondered how bad it really was for me. Shoving the thought aside, I took a drink of the coffee. I wasn't normally a huge fan of the drink, but had grown accustomed to it in the past year.

"What do you mean by being raised in it?"

He shook his head after taking another bite of food.

"I'm not getting into this until you tell me how the hell it is that you are able to do what you do. You say you were didn't choose this life? Well, who chose it for you?"

"Gee, Dean," I said, my voice taking on a patronizing tone, "I thought you knew everything about me."

"I didn't say I knew everything about you. All I know is that I got your name from a dying girl, you somehow survived a demon attack that no one else survived, and now when we finally find you, you're killing off vampires like it's nothing. Beyond that, I'm pretty much in the dark."

I really didn't want to have to explain the entire lineage of Slayers. It was just too complicated. So, I simplified.

"It's a very long story. But let's just put it this way. I kill vampires, to be specific. I also go after other supernatural things, but vampires are my main gig. This isn't something I chose, it chose me."

"So you're…not a hunter?"

He looked so confused that it was almost amusing. I wasn't sure what he was talking about. The term hunter was so broad to me. I had never heard it used in regards to what I did.

"No. I'm a Slayer."

"And that's different…how?"

"Slayers are born with power to destroy evil. Our bodies are essentially killing machines, if you want to put it that way. I don't know exactly what a hunter is, but I take it by all of the high powered weapons you carry around that you don't possess such abilities."

I eyed his shotgun, which was propped up against the dresser.

"Hey, just because I use a gun doesn't mean I don't possess abilities-"

"Yeah, let's drop the macho male bullshit act for now, okay? You must know something about what I can do. How you didn't find me earlier than now is something I find a little unbelievable. Are people that hunt supposed to be able to track things pretty well?"

The half grin on his face was one of slight embarrassment.

"The thing about that is…well, we found you a few times. You just weren't that easy to catch. You move quickly and are pretty good about not being found when you don't want to be."

A feeling of self-satisfaction coursed through me. I wasn't sure why. It only confirmed what a sad existence I led.

"So how did you not know my name until tonight?"

"I knew your name," he scoffed. "That was just something I said to get you to open the door."

"Look how well that turned out for you," I said, pointing to the harsh purple bruise I had left on his arm.

"Hey, I got mounted by a cute little blond who likes to play rough. I've had nights end worse."

I rolled my eyes at him and finished the last bite of my sandwich. Disregarding his presence, I then crawled under the covers for some much needed sleep. It amazed me that I was up at all. I felt like a zombie. There was no need to kick him out. He would either stay or find his way out on his own. If he stayed, I didn't care. He wasn't going to hurt me.

"You're going to sleep?"

He seemed upset by the notion.

"I've been up all night. I need to get my beauty sleep. You know, all four hours of it."

The sarcasm in the last sentence was entirely intentional, but truthful at the same time. A good night's rest was a rare occurrence, something completely unbeknownst to me. He remained quiet, not sure what his next move should be. After lying in an awkward silence for what felt like far too long, I sat up.

"Have you slept at all?"

"I don't really sleep."

"Yeah, well join the club. Come on," I said, patting the spot next to me on the bed. "Just stay on top of the covers and I won't kick the shit out of you for trying to come onto me."

Even after all the coffee the two of us had just consumed, he was more than eager to lie down on a comfortable bed. I had to give the cheap little motel credit for one thing; they had some of the nicest mattresses I had ever slept on. Before I could say anything else to him, he was asleep, snoring lightly and weighing down the blankets on his side. I watched him sleep for a few seconds and then realized he still had his boots on. Knowing what a pain it was to wake up in your shoes, I reached down, untied them, and tossed them on the floor.

I didn't know what to think. The emotions running through me were twisting around at my core. The pain of knowing that I had left Dawn to suffer and die without me hurt me more than I thought anything ever would. Since the day I had left, my soul had seemed to harden, not allowing any real feelings to penetrate it. There had been no proper mourning for anyone, which I knew at the time would come back to haunt me, but did nothing about it anyway. Despite not wanting to allow myself to trust anyone, I was beginning to wonder if I had a new ally. Finally, I closed my eyes and curled up beside him, sleeping soundly for the first time in nearly a year.


	6. Chapter 6

Inviting two men to stay in my motel room wasn't the best idea in the world. I didn't care how good looking they were, they were still guys. After only a day, the place was a wreck. I felt like I was the third wheel of the odd couple.

"We need another room," I muttered, not caring much if either of them heard me or not.

The tall one that I had come to know as Sam looked up, making a slight acknowledgment of my statement. Not answer, he looked back to his books. I thought Giles had books. The two of them had a fair share of them, ones that I'm sure Giles would have loved. Much like the rest of the research I had done in life, I knew only a small percentage of what I was doing. Apparently, Sam was good at research, like a very tall muscular Willow. He had her geeky nature about him, I felt. It was much more hidden, but it was still there.

The brothers were as trustworthy as they could be, a pair I felt safe with. I didn't worry that they meant me any harm. Although Dean knew little about what a Slayer was, Sam had confessed to knowing some but had been rather unsure as to what was real or not. I hadn't seen the point in divulging every last detail of the part of my life that had destroyed the rest of it. They knew I killed demons and was able to take care of myself. Anymore I would tell them as it came up.

Such secrecy came with its own opposition however. If I wasn't going to tell them what they wanted to hear, they sure as hell weren't about to tell me how or why they were hunters. Quid pro quo, I guess. Much like my own past, I figured it would come up eventually. That would be an interested day.

The boredom building up in that room could have split the walls. I was certain that they were simply staring at the pages of the books rather than reading them. That was my course of action and we had been at it for what felt like ten hours. Scratch that – Sam was most likely still reading. Dean and I were so lucky in that respect. One of us was responsible in the literary aspect. A groan from the small kitchen area confirmed my belief.

"Have you guys found anything? Please? Even if you haven't, just humor me."

I felt a tendency to agree with Dean. Anything would have satisfied me at that point. If Sam were to tell us that the book said the little girl from "The Exorcist" was to blame for everything, I would have been ecstatic just for the chance to go after something solid.

"Hungry ghosts…" Sam mumbled.

It was as if he was concerned about the reaction he would get from us. I almost told him to speak up, but kept my mouth shut.

"What the hell is a hungry ghost?"

Sam sighed.

"It's kind of complicated. There are these things called hungry ghosts. You'd hear more about them if we were on the other side of the world, I guess."

"You guess?"

He had no idea what his little brother was talking about. The look on his face tried to cover it, but I could see straight through it. It was the tone in his voice. I had used that tone many times.

"Hungry ghosts are more talked about in religions popular within Asian and Middle Eastern civilizations. A large majority of people on this side of the world associate spirits and ghosts with the Christian meaning of one. This isn't the same."

Dean's eyes were still blank, void of understanding. Sam looked to me, hoping that maybe the newest member of their little melting pot of freaks would be able to fill in some blanks so he wouldn't have to. That wasn't my area of expertise. I could just see Willow and Giles screaming things at me to tell them. The fact that I wasn't saying anything would make them itch with frustration. He sighed.

"Hungry ghosts are not necessarily a problem. Have you ever been to an Asian cemetery? Sometimes you'll see that people have left food at the graves."

"That's what that orange in Seattle was for?"

Sam rolled his eyes and I stifled a laugh.

"Yeah, Dean. That's why I told you that taking it would be a bad idea."

He tried to hide what little embarrassment he had, he moved on.

"So why would this be a hungry ghost? I would call disemboweling people a pretty big problem."

I cringed, recalling in horror the night bodies had been strewn across my house. Dean said nothing, seeing the look on my face, but feeling the moment to either apologize or take it back had passed. His brother did the same, going back to his laptop. I stared blindly at what looked like a very expensive monitor in an attempt to harden my emotions. For the time being, it worked.

"Ghosts aren't always hungry for what we consider proper substance. To 'feed', one could need whatever they need in their afterlife. That depends on what they did in life."

"Which would be…?"

"From what I have found, hungry ghosts are broken into three basic categories. There are with those who had no wealth in life, those with a just a bit, and those who had a lot of wealth. It all revolves around greed, to make it easy."

That much I understood, but I still didn't get how that caused my family to end up in pieces along with what was becoming a very large death toll. As I watched Sam's laptop flip through pages at rapid speed, I was reminded of my red-haired friend. I had packed up Willow's Mac with my belongings, but it was still hidden amongst several books. Although I could manage a computer, I was nowhere on the level of either of them.

"So, why can't they just eat?" I asked, knowing how stupid it sounded.

"It really depends. They pretty much can't eat. That's why they can get so pissed. For example, the ghosts with the wealth can be broken down. There are ones with fiery mouths. They can't eat because anything that passes into their mouths turns to flames."

Dean and I grimaced simultaneously.

"Oh, it gets better. There are other ones who have such small throats that nothing can get through them. But my personal favorite? There are ones that have such passed such a state of decomposition that it is virtually impossible for them to intake anything."

"You're making this shit up," Dean said, a hopeful edge to his voice.

"Nope," he said, shaking his head, "and even better, the greedier they were in life, the worse off they are in death. So basically, we're just dealing with one really angry ghost. One that likes to feast on corpses."


	7. Chapter 7

My stomach turned a bit when I heard him say that. It put bad images in my mind and made the occurrence at the club seem that much more vivid.

"It eats people?" Dean asked, sounding as disgusted as me.

"Some believe that the hungry ghosts can eat dead bodies because they are one of the few things they are capable of eating. Much like people, once it grows hungry again, it needs to get more corpses. Hence, the killings."

"All of them?"

My head snapped in Dean's direction. His question had come as a surprise due to my highest extent of knowledge in the current situation consisted merely of the nightclub massacre.

"What do you mean, 'all of them'? Which other ones were killed?"

Both of them looked at her then, their expressions a mix of horror and what I thought was probably concern.

"Buffy, this thing has been killing all over the continent. The last time we caught sight of it was at your house last year."

Dean's words had a particularly strange effect on me. The idea that the thing that had killed everyone I loved had finally found me had crossed my mind, but it had been brushed aside by my stubbornness.

"From what I have been able to gather," Sam said, choosing to try to avoid the growing trepidation in the room, "it's most likely that the same demon has been accountable for all the deaths."

"Does that include my family?" I asked, staring purposely at the stained carpet.

He probably nodded because when I heard him tell me yes, it was somewhat delayed. I was still focused on the ground, so I didn't see him.

"You shouldn't have left."

The solace of being alone was quickly shattered the moment Dean pulled up a stool next to mine. He was alone, something I hadn't expected. Apart from when he had found me in my room, he and Sam had been practically joined at the hip. I refused to look at him, worried I may break if I see any empathy in his expression.

"I don't think I can do this."

I wondered how many times in my life I had said that. I know I had thought it millions of times, sometimes over the easiest of task, but it never felt more true than it did sitting at that bar. Before, when I had saved the world countless times, I had someone standing behind me. Whether I knew it or not, my there was always someone willing to let me fall back on them. Facing the thing that killed them all would be something unthinkable. I worried I may crumble beneath it.

"Look," he said with some compassion in his voice, "I know where you're coming from. But you can't let it beat you down. You have to fight it."

"You don't have any idea where I am coming from," I growled, turning to glare in his direction before slamming my drink and hopping from the stool.

I could hear his footsteps chasing after me as I stomped through the tiny bar and out the back door. Such an exit demanded avoidance, but he was on my heels. We were halfway down the dank shadowy alley before he seized my wrist. The action was the wrong thing to use on me, as I reacted without even thinking about it. He was flipped over and laid out on his back in front of me much sooner than I had expected. It was clear he was in pain, which I did feel bad about.

"Shit…" I muttered, helping pull him to a sitting position against the fence.

He was soaked, covered in whatever mix of rain and car oil had been in the large puddle he had landed in.

"I'm….God, I'm sorry. You can't do that though!"

I tried to contain the lecturing tone, but it came through regardless.

"Apparently…" he winced.

"I am sorry. I'm just not one you can just grab. This is the result."

"I bet you make a great date."

I smiled, although I wasn't sure if he was joking or not.

"Did I break anything?"

He moved around a bit and I grimaced upon hearing a sound I knew wasn't natural coming from his side. I had busted one of his ribs, if not many.

"Nothing that won't heal."

As carefully as I could, I slid my arm around him and helped him stand.

"I'm going to look pretty pathetic having a little blond girl hold me up…" he mumbled, probably trying to avoid the pain.

"We'll just tell everyone you're drunk," I joked.

"I'd laugh, but I'm sure it would kill if I did."

"Where's your car?"

He pointed down the alley. We stumbled to the end of it and then to a close parking lot. I saw that oversized Chevrolet sitting in the back of it and was grateful I didn't have to drag him around anymore. The faster he got off his feet, the better he would feel.

"Give me your keys," I insisted the moment we reached the car.

"Oh, no. No fucking way."

"So, you're just going to walk all the way back to the motel? I can do that, but I highly doubt you're in the mood for it."

He groaned and almost immediately flinched in pain.

"Fine. They're in my jacket pocket."

I set him against the side of the car and realized I would have to hold him up with the weight of my body to get the keys. Otherwise he would fall to the ground. As I pressed myself against him and dug into the jacket, I practically felt him grin.

"Don't get any ideas."

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it."

"I'm sure," I said, finally finding the keys and opening the passenger door.

As vigilant as possible, I set him on the passenger seat. When I came around to the driver's side and was sitting before the steering wheel, I looked to my side. His look was incredibly leery.

"Would you please calm down? It's not good for you to be so worried right now. It'll be fine."

"Just be careful, okay?"

I couldn't believe him.

"You're sitting over there because I broke you in half and you're worried about a ton of steel?"

"She's not just a ton of steel!"

"She?"

He just stared at me with wide eyes. It was the face of a little boy. The face told me I couldn't possibly understand the relationship between the man and his car. It was so much more than I could know. I would have laughed had we been in a better circumstance. Trying to ease his anxiety and perhaps a bit of pain, I turned on the radio when I started the engine.

"What do you want to hear?"

"Anything from back there."  
I turned to the backseat to see a pile of cassettes.

"Wow. Welcome to the eighties…"

"Shut it, Blondie. Just put some music on."

Not wanting to add to his aggravation, I grabbed a random cassette. Tossing it in the player, I recognized the song.

"I know this one," I recalled after pulling onto the street and into traffic, "it's Eric Clapton, right?"

"Well, yes," he said in what I distinguished to be a pained voice, "but, this is the Derek and the Dominos version."

"What the hell is Derek and the Dominos?"

"Yeah," he groaned, "that's what I thought…"

I was about to ask him what he meant but heard a rustling sound.

"What is…what are you doing?"

When I turned to look, I saw him trying to climb into the backseat.

"There's a first aid kit in the back."

"You're going to need a hell of a lot more than that if you don't stop moving around!"

I threw the car into park on the shoulder of the road and pushed him back to the passenger seat, pinning him down.

"Just drive the fucking car. I've done this before!"

"You don't need to do it now. You're not alone. So either sit still and wait until we get back to the motel or I'll knock you unconscious!"

It was easy to see that it was making him crazy to have me tell him what to do. The internal struggle of his mind was nearly visible to the human eye. Finally, he just agreed and slumped against the seat, starring out the window into the night.

Knowing that he wouldn't go against what I had said, I started up the car and pulled back onto the road. Soon, we were outside of the city and things darkened. I was still listening to the same long Derek and the Dominos song.

"Isn't this song about his wife?"

The question wasn't to break the ice – I was genuinely curious. I had heard it once before, but had never confirmed it and since it was the only thing I could hear, it was bugging me.

"It was about George Harrison's wife," he said, his voice pouty.

He refused to look at me, even when I tried to initiate a conversation.

"George Harrison?"

"The Beatle."

"Oh."

There was another long silence between us. The song became more longing through the piano solo.

"Eric Clapton couldn't have her because she was married. So he wrote this song about her."

"Did he ever get her?"

"Eventually."

I smiled, feeling happy for the first time that night. 


	8. Chapter 8

It was nearly three in the morning when I reached the motel, pulling him in alongside me like a limp rag. A limp, protesting rag. His brother was still awake, which didn't surprise me. The three of us ran late hours, ones that only those of the graveyard shifts would find normal.

"What happened?" Sam asked, his square face a complete blank.

"I broke your brother," I said, placing him on the bed as gently as humanly possible.

It wasn't enough. I could tell by the awful sound that echoed from his larynx when his back touched the mattress. I was feeling worse as the minutes moved on.

"I didn't mean to. It just kind of…happened."

The taller of the two looked at me sympathetically, something I hadn't expected, as if he had seen it coming.

"Slayer strength?"

"What?" I asked, completely flabbergasted. The question almost left me to forget about the other man lying injured on the bed.

"I've looked into you a little more."

"What, is there a fucking site about Slayers now?"

As much as I wished that was a joke, it wouldn't surprise me. With things the way they were in that current day in age, all it would take was for some potential to hop onto a social network in an out of character mode to get the Slayer lineage known.

"Um, no," he said, haphazardly, "not quite. I was reading some of the books in your bag…"

He seemed so out of place and upset by my outburst. It was almost sad. The look in his eyes made me feel terrible.

"Sorry for jumping all over you. I'm just a little, I don't know, upset right now…"

"About Dean?"

"Well, there's that. And a lot more."

"Hey, I hate to break up your little conversation, but my damn ribs are split over here," Dean groaned, visibly upset.

"Do you have anything for him?" I asked Sam, feeling incredibly upset about harming someone who had done nothing to me but offer kindness.

"Sure, I do."

I watched him venture across the room to the little area made to look like a kitchen. He reached into the small cupboard and pulled out a bottle. When I could read it clearly, I was shocked.

"Jack Daniels?"

"Do you have anything better?"

I stared blankly at him.

"Vicodin? Codeine?"

My mind was even the blanker. I couldn't contemplate what was going on.

"Okay, Jack will do."

With wide eyes, I watched him move quickly, nursing his older brother back to health in one of the most back alley ways imaginable. While Dean proceeded to guzzle down gulps of whiskey, Sam snapped his ribs back in the proper places. The breaking of bone was one of the most sickening sounds I had ever heard. I watched sadly as he bandaged his ribs, something that made me wince just watching. Not knowing how else I could help, I sat beside Dean, allowing him to grip my hand at any possible moment. He had squeezed down desperately more times than he clearly cared for, but the only pain I felt was that which told me I had put him there. Staring into his eyes as he cringed back at me was my penance. I felt I had been entirely renounced.

~

"You don't need to feel so bad about this, Blondie."

"Would you quit calling me that?"

I was sitting at the foot of the bed. He was still lying in it, just as he had been for the past several days. For the short time that I had known him, I knew he wasn't one to keep off of his feet. He considered it a weakness, like he wasn't contributing. When Sam was gone, it was worse. He wouldn't stop talking about how he should be out, looking for the thing that was killing all those people. I hated it. Hurting people was something I never wanted to do. Unfortunately, it just happened now and then. I wished for Willow. She could take away his pain.

Sam had disappeared for the day. He was on the hunt for clues while his brother was incapacitated. It had been agreed upon that he was clearly better at the research than either of us and I was plenty capable of taking care of Dean in his absence. I was beginning to wonder if that was a good or bad thing.

"Why not, Blondie? You're blonde," he said with an adorable smile.

I tried as hard as possible not to claim that he was indeed attractive, but it was true. No matter how hard I tried to push his aggressive manner and sometimes terrible wording in front of those looks, it didn't matter. Those thoughts forced me to smile back at him.

"See? You like it."

I rolled my eyes.

"What do you expect from me? And when I say that, I mean, really."

He sat up, something I hadn't seen since I had thrown him to the ground.

"God, didn't that hurt?"

He nodded, not wanting to speak more than necessary. I motioned to help him to his feet, but he shook his head, indicating that he wanted to stay put. I wished that I could do more to help, but I remained in place.

"Buffy," he said, grimacing through the words, "I just want you to be you."

"You act like you know me. You don't know anything about me."

He raised his eyebrows at me and then sheepishly looked aside.

"I know more than you think."

"Like what?"

I really didn't expect him to say anything that would matter. He didn't seem the type to exert much more than mere guesswork.

"Oh, I don't know. How about the fact that you used to live in Los Angeles only to move to a little town in California called Sunnydale? There, you found a Hellmouth and were assigned to essentially care to it regardless of what you cared about. Not only that, but you saved the world from certain destruction roughly six or seven times from the likes of a god named Glory and even your close witch friend. Not to mention just about anything else one could imagine. When the Hellmouth finally caved in on itself, you thought you were safe and could finally lead a somewhat normal life. The only problem was that the demons didn't care what you thought. They kept coming and they came for you and your kind. The horrible thing killed them off, but it didn't kill you. Does that sound about right?"

Astonished wasn't the right word for what I felt when I looked at him. Maybe violated was a better term. At such an interval, I couldn't be certain. I simply didn't know what to say.

"Buffy?"

"How-"

"I've had some time to do some research in those books you have. I can't just lie here all day and do nothing. Besides, that doesn't really matter. What matters is that you be who you really are. From what I know about you, I know that you don't stand down. You fight. "

I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. His words were tearing my heart open. It was like listening to one of my loved ones pulled back from graves I would never be able to visit.

"I just…I can't do it…"

My throat closed tightly, locking in tears that I hoped wouldn't pass through my eyes. I looked away suddenly, not wanting him to see me.

"You're one of the few people that can. Hell, I'm not even sure Sam and I can do this, so you may be the only one that can do it.  
Doing my best to grin, I turned back to him.

"Want to watch some TV?" I asked, hoping to change the subject.

The look in his eyes told me that he knew how I felt and he conveniently nodded. I flicked the set on, rapidly skipping through the channels. As depressing as it was, I stopped at the news.

"…as the city continues to leave in fear, the police have done nothing to diminish the wave of strange murders overtaking our town…"

"Oh, for God's sake…" I muttered, knowing already that the story was about the thing we were looking for.

"What?" Dean asked, suddenly lurching forward and screaming in pain.

I was on him then, shoving him back against the pillows.

"You have to stay calm, do you understand me? You're going to rip yourself apart otherwise."

The gritting of his teeth was all I needed to hear to tell me that the point had gotten across. He had been in sheer agony for almost a week. I wondered how much longer I would have to deal with the guilt of knowing I had put him in such a position. As he settled back slowly, I shushed him as nicely as possible.

"Have you taken any of those painkillers Sam was able to get for you?"

As much as I speculated where he had been able to round up a number of different prescription pills, I found it best not to ask.

"Not in while…"

The sound of his voice told me that the while he was speaking of most likely had been lengthy. Men could be so stubborn at times, especially when they were at a weakened state like he was. I couldn't understand that, as much as I despised being physically debilitated. I wasn't about to bother him about it though. Instead, I snatched the little orange bottle of pills from the side table.

"Take two of these."

"You can't know that's the right dosage."

I stared at him blankly.

"You do remember that your brother used Jack Daniels to numb you up before performing what I can only consider to be a very primitive method? I think taking two of these pills is the least of your problems."

He swiped the bottle from me without another word and swallowed the pills dry. I looked back to the TV and listened as the newscasters droned on about things they knew little about.

"…the death toll has increased with the murders of a woman her two small children…"

"Oh, God, it's going after kids now?"

I felt disgusted.

"We have to do something. I can't stay laid up in this bed anymore with all of this happening."

"You're not going anywhere right now, so don't move," I said, reacting before he could move.

He noticed my sudden guard in his direction and although it caused his brow to furrow in what I could only guess to be annoyance, he remained still.

"Thank you. I feel bad enough."

I turned back to the broadcast just in time to see the father of the children sobbing at the camera. From what I gathered, he had been at work when his family had been killed. My stomach turned, recognizing his pain.


	9. Chapter 9

We had decided it would be best to move to a different motel after Dean was healed. To be honest, I was certain he wasn't healed. It had only been a few days and he was having difficulty moving around, no matter how hard he tried to cover it up. He was terribly persistent though, so Sam and I had simply made up our minds not to try to get him off his feet again. A new room was needed though. There just wasn't enough space for the three of us.

I had parked the Harley beside the Impala in front of some no name roadside motel and moved to help Dean out of the car. He gave me a look of disgust, which I ignored as I slid an arm around him and let him lean on me in order to walk properly. Our newest place of dwelling was in just about the same style as our last, with the exception of several square feet of extra space. The ugly retro look that may at one time looked good had faltered to faded orange carpet and awful wallpaper. Two large beds were on the far side of the room, covered in green blankets that clashed horribly with the remainder of the room. A matching green sofa sat in the far corner across from them, appearing heavily worn with small tears in the material and absolutely no softness.

We still had a kitchen, complete with a refrigerator that wouldn't be used that often and a stove that hadn't been replaced since at least the fifties. Although it appeared that the motel staff had done their best to clean it, dark stains that were most likely etched into the top remained.

"Have either of you seen this bathroom?" I yelled out to them after we were finished hauling in bags and had become slightly moved in.

"What about it?" I heard Dean yell back, his voice nowhere near as concerned as mine.  
I was standing just inside the frame of the bathroom door. The room itself was no larger than a closet. I would be shocked if more than one person could fit in it at a time. It was a filthy mess. Whoever the last tenant had been, they had cared little about their cleanliness. Cigarette ash was everywhere.

"It's tiny and…gross," I said in perhaps the most feminine tone I had ever mustered.

I could feel him behind me suddenly.

"You've been on the run for a year and this is the worst thing you've seen?" he asked, his tone taking on a sardonic edge.

"Dude, dirty bathrooms are just…eww…"

I didn't know what else to say. Turning back, I noticed that Dean had walked away and was sitting on the bed cleaning one of his smaller guns.

"Dean!"

"What?" he asked, not looking at me.

"What are we supposed to do? This is awful."

"Clean it. Or get Sam to clean it. God knows he will feel the same when he sees it."  
I groaned and slammed the bathroom door shut, trying to ignore it. There were several pistols and rifles sitting on the other bed after being carried in from the car. I carefully hid them in select places, ones that would be hidden to anyone who may somehow get into the room, but still accessible to us. Boxes of bullets were stuffed into drawers and bags of rock salt were out of sight, beneath the bed. The moment I picked up a select gun, Dean suddenly spoke.

"That ones goes in the safe."

"What?"

His declaration confused me since he hadn't cared much about any of the guns or anything else in the room for that matter.

"That gun – put it in the safe," he said, pointing at both my hand and the wall safe across the room.

"Why?"

"Stop asking questions, okay? I'll explain later, just make sure that was is in that safe please."

I was annoyed, but disregarded it. Wanting to drop the subject, I pacified him by locking it securely inside the safe.

~

We were no closer to finding out the location of our hungry ghost. Sam had filled us with numerous new facts though, ones that made us none the more confident. Apparently they could only be seen in their true form by night. Not only that, not everyone could see them that way. Only people in specific mental conditions could see them, so unless one of them was somewhat mentally immobilized, we would have to find the person it was possessing. I wasn't that eager to accidentally catch sight of one anyway. From what we had found, the things were walking metaphors for their conditions. They looked as human as possible, but had incredibly shrunken faces and limbs, tiny throats, and enormous stomachs to accentuate their tremendous appetites. I didn't need to see that.

"We need to go out. This research is doing nothing but boring the hell out of me. And neither of you are entertained by it either, so don't lie."

The two looked at me, surprise covering their faces.

"Don't give me that look. We've been doing nothing but this for…how long? God, it's after ten!" I said, looking at the clock and realizing I had been in the motel for nearly eight hours.

"Let's go out. Maybe we can find something by talking to people. Or maybe we can just have a good time."

Neither of them could say anything back to that. They knew as well as me that we were becoming a bit cabin feverish doing nothing but sitting inside. Dean hadn't been out in nearly a week, apart from moving to the new place. Before they could say anything to the contrary, I leapt to my feet and went to the bathroom to put on some makeup. Sam had cleaned the room for me, something that told me that either he was a clean a person as I was or chivalry truly was not dead. I switched into a pair of dark jeans and a bubblegum pink halter top, which looked much better than the sweats I had been lounging around in. It only took me a few minutes to make myself look somewhat decent hair and skin wise.

"Wow, look at you," Dean said with a low whistle when I finally left the bathroom.

"It's nothing," I said with a slight laugh, "let's go."

I was watching the lights of Chicago close in on us as the Impala drove towards the city. We weren't quite sure where we were going, so once we hit a street that was littered with people dressed nearly the same as me, Dean parked the car in a nearby lot. Although we weren't sure exactly what we were looking for, as the ghost wasn't going to just make itself known to us, we watched people as we walked down the street. Part of my mind was focused on the pain in my feet caused by the pink heels that matched my shirt. I tried to overlook it, but found it impossible.

"Hey, guys, how about we go in here?" I asked, no longer able to take the throbbing.

I was standing before a little bar, one that was small, but looked nice. The customers looked to be from just about every walk of life and I didn't feel we would be given any trouble. They shrugged, happy that I had been the one to make a decision. We made our way to the back and sat at a corner table, one that gave us a view of everyone in the building. Unfortunately, no one really stood out.

~

The days of pain and boredom had gotten to us. I knew it was that which caused us to think that drinking large pitchers of long island iced teas was a good plan. I was beyond the buzzed point and was ready to do or say anything. The strong liquors had made me incredibly slap happy. Lucky for me and Dean, Sam had taken to only drinking a couple beers. He said someone would have to drive because he knew Dean would be damned if he had to leave the Impala alone somewhere.

We had been there for hours, so many that I felt it may be close to closing time, but then again, I could be completely turned around. My mind was a blur. There was a dance floor that took up a majority of the bar across the way from us. It was messing with me. There were too many brightly colored lights and the house music they played me feel like I was in a trance or some really elaborate dream. I did my best to keep my eyes off it, but it proved difficult.

"These cheese fries are really good, you know that? I mean, what do you think it is that makes them so good?"

The slur in my voice was so obvious that the brothers could do nothing but laugh at me. My once dance floor centered mind had suddenly hopped over to the cheese fries someone had ordered. I couldn't remember who had decided on such a fascinating appetizer.

"Maybe you should slow down," Dean said, not doing much to detour me from the glass in front of me, which I took another long gulp out of.

"I'm…fine…" I muttered.

"Sure you are. Just keep eating those fries. Lay off the booze for a bit."

I didn't want to argue with him and didn't see the point while I had an incredible pile of cheeses fries in front of me. They were so damn good. So when Dean pulled the glass away from me and replaced it with one filled with water, I said nothing.

"You're fun, you know that?" I stammered, pointing at Dean with a cheese soaked French fry. "I can see it in you. Even though you try to be all serious, I bet you're a lot of fun…"

He just stared at me, obviously amused with my state.

"Don't give me that look, you know what I mean…"

"No, I don't," he taunted, grinning at me the whole time, "please enlighten me."

"Oh, for God's sake," Sam sighed, not drunk enough to partake in our idiotic style of conversing or flirting or whatever we were doing. "I think I'm going to go pay the check."

"Take your time," Dean said, not taking his eyes off me as his brother left the table.

I slid my chair as close to his as possible, grinning drunkenly from ear to ear. He had been drinking nearly as much as me, but wasn't my size. He could handle the large amount of alcohol, whereas I was afraid to stand, knowing I would lose my footing. It didn't matter though. I was too busy uncharacteristically hitting on the man whose bones I had broken days ago. For a reason unbeknownst to me, I seized his hands, squeezing them as my words spilled out in as gnarled rubbish.

"We could sneak out of here, you know," I said in a voice that meant to come out like a whisper, but was considerably louder.

"What?" he asked, laughing.

"Stop laughing, it's not funny," I said, laughing nearly as much as he was.

"Yes, it is."

I rolled my eyes, still laughing at nothing, and then came to a sudden halt, my mind telling me to get out of the bar and drag him with me.

"Look," I spoke sloppily, "it's been like…months since I've been with…anyone. And I've seen the way you look at me. I'm not an idiot."

"Yeah, Buffy, you're trashed."

There was a strong emphasis on the last word that made me realize he was very serious. That certainly put a damper on the moment.

"What…no…I'm not – I'm just fine…"

That statement was canceled out the second I stood and collapsed straight into his arms. He pulled me to my feet then and grabbed my shoes and bag from beneath the table. Until then, I forgotten that I had even taken them off.

"What? Where are we going?" I mumbled, my face pressed against his chest and closed my eyes.

He didn't answer as we began to walk slowly in what I guessed to be the direction of the door. I felt myself begin to fade a would have probably passed out on my feet if I hadn't heard a sudden scream. It was loud enough to shake me to the core and I felt a sense of fear. When I opened my eyes, I saw that the bar was encased in darkness. The music had shot out suddenly and the two of us stood still until another scream tore through the night, soon accompanied by many more.

"Oh, shit, not now…" he groaned, still holding me up.

I was shaking then, as it had grown unnaturally cold in the room. I gripped onto him tighter.

"SILENCE!"

One of the yellow toned lights used for the dance floor suddenly illuminated a woman standing at the front of the bar. She was a petite creature, perhaps a bit too skinny with pale skin and shoulder length blond hair with pink dyed into the ends. I thought she would have been a cute girl had her eyes not been solid black. Two much larger brute style men stood behind her, guarding the door.

"The next person who speaks dies first, got it?"

The silence that followed seemed to satisfy her.

"Wow, you actually believed that?"

A sick, maniacal laughter escaped her then just before we watched her advance on a woman mere feet from her. The woman screeched in horror just before the thing tore out her throat with her teeth. My eyes widened in horror. Although I had seen vampires go after people for years, that was different. That woman was no vampire – she was something else, something I had never seen. From what I could see, she didn't drink the blood. That was simply a side effect. She tore the flesh from the poor woman.

When her victim dropped to the floor with a sickening thud, she wiped the blood from her mouth and looked around.

"Who's next?"


	10. Chapter 10

The woman taking pieces out of people in the front of the building was not the same one that had sliced open my stomach and killed my family. I didn't allow that thought to persuade me however; it was the same thing. It was simply wearing the body of some other poor host. In a very atypical move, I remained frozen in place, unable to think clearly. It wasn't the alcohol either. Although my senses had been dulled slightly, I knew what kept me rooted to the ground. It was fear. By the time I felt Dean tugging at me harshly to move, I was unaware of how long he had been doing it. I shook my head, afraid the thing would see me.

"Come on," he whispered urgently, before pulling me as far to the back as we could get.

We slid into the kitchen and got as far back as the storage room.

"How do you get out of here?" he growled at a line cook, who looked terrified.

Everyone from the kitchen was huddled together on the dirty tile floor, some crying. I felt horrible for them. They had no idea what was really happening.

"The doors are locked at midnight. We can only go out the front," he stammered, trying not to cry.

"Stupid damn rules. Do you know how many people are going to die because of this?"

The cook shook his head, his eyes wide.

"Of course you don't…" he mumbled, pulling me down with him to the floor.

I leaned against him, doing my best not to break down. I wasn't used to feeling so beaten down by something. I wanted to go out and fight it and kill it, but the thought of approaching it terrified me. My stomach turned, making me feel that I was going to vomit.

"What about Sam?" I whispered, suddenly remembering that he was out there somewhere.

"He'll be just fine. He knows more about this damn thing than we do, remember?"

I nodded, still not convinced.

"Why aren't we out there? We need to do something."

I made an effort to stand, but he pulled me back down.

"As much as I hate to say this, right now, the best thing we can do is stay out of the way. We don't know how to defeat this thing. If any of us has any clue, it's Sam. So he's the best one for the job. All we can do is sit back here and avoid being eviscerated."

Not being able to say much to that, I laid my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes, doing all I could to block out the sounds of flesh being torn apart and people screaming for their lives.

It was difficult to say how much time had passed before the killing stopped and the lights came back on. I didn't want to go back out there. For a moment, I wished that the thing had just killed me back in Vancouver so I wouldn't have to live with the type of fear I felt then. I didn't have much of a choice though once Dean lifted me to my feet. Something told me he knew how I was feeling, for he said nothing as we wandered to the front. The second we stepped out of the kitchen, I smelled death. It engulfed my senses and hijacked my mind, causing the memories of the night everyone had died in my house to flow in. As we made our way through the remains out former partygoers and diners, I squeezed my eyes shut. I simply couldn't take it anymore.

"We should stay…" I muttered incoherently, "…wait for the police…"

"And tell them what, exactly?" he asked, ignoring my request and dragging me at a slow pace through the corpses, trying to avoid them.

"I don't know. We can't just go."

"Yes, we can. Oh, God…"

I cringed as I heard him step on something. Although I didn't look down, I could tell what it was. An organ, perhaps a heart had been smashed beneath his shoe. Whatever particulars I wasn't certain about, it didn't matter. We were walking amongst the dead, those stripped of their skin, innards, and lives. It felt like a warzone. That was when things got loud. Everyone who had been behind us in the kitchen had made their way out and were making noises I rarely heard humans make. Unable to look back at them in fear that I may lose what little composure I had left, I merely listened to many drop to the floor into what could have been someone they had known.

When I finally got the nerve built up to open my eyes, I could see Dean looking around erratically. The expression on his face told me he was afraid of what may be lurking through the bar, but he said nothing. As I clutched him, the dread I felt forced me to keep my eyes peeled, silently hoping that whatever had been there would not return. It was too noisy for me to listen for anything, which made me feel a bit handicapped. I absolutely loathed the entire situation.

We reached the very last stool at the end of the bar closest to the door. He leaned me against the bar, motioning for me to sit. I stared at him in sheer bewilderment.

"What are you doing? Why aren't we leaving?"

"We will. I just need to figure out where Sam is first."

I knew the way he felt. It was the same way I had felt in regards to Dawn every time something put us in jeopardy. Still, I was petrified. The little girl in me, the one who hadn't yet known that monsters were indeed real and how strong I was, shone through. All I wanted was to run into the streets and keep running until the thing killing everyone around me stopped.

"Buffy," he said, sensing my fear, "you're going to be okay. Just stay here. I'll be back before you know it."

I heard his words, but they meant nothing. They flowed into my mind and were immediately squashed by the larger feelings of sickness and panic. My body was literally shaking and I felt that if I said anything else, it would come out not as words, but some mess of a twisted language. Instead, I just looked at him, hoping he would get the message that he'd better hurry his ass up because I wasn't going to stay there much longer.

Not allowing me to protest in any nature, he vanished, off to search for his brother. Unable to look at the state of decay on the once very shiny wooden floor, I spun the barstool around, tried to distract myself by reading the names on the large bottles of alcohol, and then finally buried my face in my hands. The chance that I would break down was becoming very real, something I didn't want to happen. It was one thing to be scared to the point that I was, but if I started crying, I most likely wouldn't stop. Things would only get worse from there.

"Hey, you!" I heard someone hiss from the other side of the bar.

I looked up, confused. Standing between me and the bottles was one of the people that had been in the kitchen. He was glaring at me, dressed in a white busboy's uniform. The arms and torso of the shirt were coated in dark blood, something I wanted so badly to ignore.

"What?" I asked, infuriated that he would say anything to me in such an insolate tone.

"All the witnesses have been told to gather over there," he pointed to the far corner of the room where a collection of frightened people stood.

I simply stared at him, not moving.

"Just leave me alone."

"Listen, lady, if you don't get over there right now-"

"I don't much care for the tone of your voice. Now quit fucking around like this is some kind of social event and leave me the hell alone!"

Infuriated with a reddened face, he frowned. Under any normal circumstance, I'm sure he would have just let my comments slide, but that wasn't the case then. Instead, he advanced on me, something that I didn't react too well. The alcohol had dulled my senses, slowing me down. I wasn't too slow to not dodge the back of his hand, which swung through the air instead of hitting my targeted face. Rather than jumping out of the way, I fell backwards, off the stool.

Once I hit the floor, I quickly pulled myself to my feet, knowing it would be for the best. Aware of the fact that I wasn't nearly as fast as usual, I improvised, throwing a glass full of alcohol in his face the moment I was standing up straight. It threw him off and I took that moment to knock him off his feet. I wasn't in the mood for a fight, so I hopped over the bar and put a foot on his chest, pinning him to the ground.

"Leave me alone. Understand?" I snarled.

He nodded, crawling out from beneath my shoe and walking away. Resisting the urge to grab one of the liquor bottles on the shelves in front of me, I went back to the stool. It would have been very easy for me to complete my transition into an all out inebriated state with a few more swigs of just about any form of alcohol. Such a change would allow me to forget about what was happening for at least a few hours. I couldn't do it though. I already felt bad enough physically.

Time couldn't have passed more slowly. Mixed amongst a group of sobbing witnesses to what would look like a ritualistic murder to outsiders was not a really fun experience. The police were taking their sweet time getting there, but I was grateful for that. I didn't need to get stuck in there for the rest of the night being interrogated. It was the thought of that which made me walk from the bar and look for Dean.

"Dean?" I called, looking around a building that was still a bit dark.

Several of the lights had shot out when that thing had been present. It caused a little over half of the building to be dark and parts that weren't entirely dark were dim.

"Dean?"

I turned a corner and saw him out of the corner of my eye. He was kneeling on the ground, his body as rigid as stone. I walked up behind him to see what he was looking at, only to gasp in horror.

"Oh…oh, no…no, no, no…"

Lying before the two of them was what used to be Sam. His torso had been torn in half and the pieces of him that the thing hadn't ingested were strewn aside him carelessly. Most of his face and neck had been torn out, but I recognized him all the same. I felt numb. For a moment, I forgot that Dean was even there, looking at his family the same way I had looked at mine only a year earlier. I looked at him without saying a word and saw tears roll down his cheeks. He didn't wipe them away and remained frozen in place.

"I'm so sorry, Dean. Oh, God…"

It was strange. I had only known them for a short time, but I felt so bad. A big part of it was because I thought that if I had taken care of the thing like I should have, this wouldn't have happened to another family. Another thought, despite the ridiculousness of it, told me that if I hadn't been so busy flirting with his brother, Sam wouldn't have left the table. He would have hidden with us in the back, out of the path of danger.

"Hey…" I said, placing my hand on Dean's shoulder.

He shook me aside angrily, wiping his face.

"Get away," he hissed.

"We have to get out of here."

"I'm not leaving him here!"

I wished I could do something for him, but the only realistic option was to leave as fast as possible.

"I know…" I said, my tone begging, "but we don't have any time. Please…"

"Didn't you hear me? I'm not-"

Unable to sit around and dispute the subject, I seized his arm and tore from the building. Regardless of my drunken state, I was still the stronger and faster of the two of us. And no matter how hard he tried to pull away from me, I was able to get to the Impala right before the police stopped at the bar. I could see them in the side mirror of the passenger side, the lights of their cars brilliant against the darkness of the night.

"Dean?" I asked after a few minutes of a dead silence.

I looked at him for the first time since I had forced him into the driver's seat. He hadn't started the engine yet. He hadn't even looked for his keys. All he could do was look out the windshield, his mind most likely a blank.

"Dean?"

"Please don't talk to me. Not now."

I leaned back against the seat and closed my eyes, scared that if I kept looking at him, I would start to cry. I had no right to cry at that point. If I did, it would show weakness, something I didn't think he needed then. It must have been twenty minutes before I heard him move, rattling car keys. We rode back to the motel listening to some very melancholy classic rock song, one that made things worse than they already were.


	11. Chapter 11

It had been days since I had seen him. Part of me wondered if I would ever see him again. After the death of his brother, he had dropped me off at the motel, picked up several of his guns and a bag of what I could only guess to be clothing, and had vanished. In truth, I missed him. It had been hard enough having to deal with the murders. I loathed not being able to fight that night. I had simply sat in the back hiding while innocent people were butchered.

Even I knew though that it was not that black and white. There were so many mediating factors. Sure, I was the girl to go to when you needed to destroy the monsters, and from what little I knew of the Winchesters, they were the same, but we had stepped into a gray area. I had slipped – drinking myself into a blurred stupor. Had I known how to defeat that thing, fighting it would have been a bad idea. I would have chanced getting myself seriously injured or possibly killed.

By the way Dean had acted after the killings, I knew he felt the same. Although I could see he had done the smart thing, keeping both himself and me out of harm's way, he was certainly the type to go down fighting. Both of us felt lost. We had both lost our families to the same hideous creature that we had been unable to put so much as a dent in. It was sickening.

Since he had been gone, I had been patrolling manically. I had barely slept, spending my nights either in the subway tunnels or the graveyards. No matter how many vampires I staked, none would help lessen the feeling of worthlessness that haunted me. I spent the light hours in the hotel, eagerly awaiting the moment he would return to the motel. It was ridiculous, really. For all I knew, he was halfway across the country by then. Still, I pined for him.

The fourth day since his disappearance had come to a close as I watched the sun set in the distance. It was raining outside with enormous drops pounding against the cheap roof of the motel. I sat on the bed, staring at some of the rifles Dean had left behind as well as a stack of Sam's books beside his laptop. It was still open, the way he had left it before we went out. Tears began to roll down my cheeks, ones that I didn't bother to wipe away. Everyone around me had been killed. I had never felt so weak in my entire life.

The rain had picked up. Part of me worried that the area may begin to flood, but the other part of me didn't care. I could no longer take comfort in my own company. The time around Dean and Sam had made my human side show itself for the first time in a year, something that was trying desperately to stick with me. All the sadness and mental torture was building up though, causing my humanity to disintegrate. I hated it. I couldn't live that way anymore.

That was when I heard the key turn in the lock, opening the door. Although I knew who it had to be, I shot up on instinct. It was nearly pitch black dark due to the darkness of the night and the storm. Regardless, I could see Dean's figure in the faint moonlight and lay back down quickly, not knowing what to say to him. He didn't look in my direction and probably guessed I was asleep. I listened as he set a bag quietly on the floor and got undressed. I expected him to go to the second bed, but instead, he stood alongside mine, gazing down at me. There was a slight whiff of alcohol on his breath, something I had come to associate greatly with mourning. I felt the mattress dip slightly as he crawled under the covers just beside me. It was strange. His presence was immensely comforting and I felt an unspoken connection with him that I couldn't put into words. It wasn't until I felt his hand slide down the side of my face that I turned to him.

For a moment we were very still, just looking into each other's eyes. There were so many things we could have said then, but we were silent. The pain that we shared remained unmentioned, but I could tell it was on the forefront of his mind as well. He leaned into me then, kissing my neck. Feeling warmth that I hadn't experienced in longer than I could remember, I clutched him to me tightly. His lips moved up my neck, along my jaw line, and to my own lips. I kissed him hungrily then, doing the best I could to crush my own overpowering emotions as well as his. As he held the back of my head, he managed to undo the buttons of m y pajama top with one hand, stripping me of half my clothing. I wrapped my arms around his back and pulled him close to me, pressing his warm body to me.

I found it funny how human beings functioned. In times of colossal sadness, we found ourselves divulging in other emotions of the highest order. Knowing that shoved any guilt I had out of my head, as I imagined it did with him as well. He grasped my hand then and ran it over him. My need for him increased then and I kissed him a bit rougher, hardening him beneath my hand with every passing moment.

"God, I want you so fucking bad…" he whispered urgently in my ear.

The tone of his voice turned me on all the more. It was the need, the feeling of being wanted so much, even for that moment that helped erode the sting or regret and loss. He pulled my blue cotton pajama pants off then and I felt two of his fingers move inside of me. An involuntary moan escaped me as I arched my back suddenly. He took the opportunity to crawl atop me, running his lips down my neck and between my breasts to the small of my stomach. Looking up at me, he moved back and held my small face in his hands, kissing me again.

Somewhere amid then and me gripping him against me forcefully, I felt him push himself inside of me. There was a split second of pain brought on by my long stretch between sexual episodes, followed by a feeling of completion I hadn't expected. For a small period, we sat with one another, taking each other in. Then our primal instincts kicked in, the ones craving satisfaction. My nails dug into his back deeply as we crashed together, both of us feeding off of the other. I felt him shudder just as I reached my own orgasm, one causing my legs to tremble fiercely. I sighed hard as he lay on me for a mere few seconds, only to roll over beside me afterwards.

Although we said nothing, once I turned on my side, he wrapped his arms around me and buried his face in my back, kissing it lightly a few times before lying still. My sadness had been momentarily subdued by his actions. Something told me he felt the same, as terrible as some may think that to be. I did my best to try to block out what he may have to say to me in the following hours. The idea that things may be changed between the two of us didn't come up. The sex hadn't felt like a loving thing, rather a necessity to keep us alive. More important, it was to keep us human.


	12. Chapter 12

He wasn't there the next morning. I hadn't anticipated him to be. When I awoke, the rain was still coming down and it was darker than usual outside. I briefly wondered if he would come back until I suddenly heard the sound of the key twisting in the door. When it opened, I saw him standing in the opening with a bag of some kind of breakfast between his teeth and two coffees in his hands. He quickly retreated to the small kitchen table.

"Please, just stay there. Don't help or anything," he said when he was able to put the bag down.

I was quick to pull on my discarded clothing and join him at the table, ignoring his sardonic remark. There were numerous donuts before me, probably because he was either very hungry or had no clue what kind I liked. Little did he know, I could have cared less. I was hungry and they all looked very good. For the first few minutes that we gorged on food, we didn't say a word to one another. Then I turned to my coffee.

"So, what happens now?"

He set down his own coffee and eyed me strangely.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what happens now? Are you just going to leave again?"

He was reluctant to speak and I felt the need to reiterate myself.

"I don't know what to think right now. You disappeared and I didn't think you would be back. Then you just…showed up last night."

"Look, I had to burn my own brother's body. Do you have any idea how awful that is?"

I clearly didn't, but I had an idea of how horrible it was to lose family to such a creature.

"I'm not giving you shit, okay? I just want to know what to expect. I don't really know you. I don't know if you came back this morning just because you fucked me last night or because you want to keep working with me."

"Can't it be both?"

"Yes," I said, more automatically than anything. I really hadn't expected him to say that, but it was nice to hear.

Things were strange with us for quite a while. I hadn't officially introduced him to the nature of my patrolling; something that I still didn't feel comfortable bringing him on. He insisted that he come with me, but I was still trying to ditch him. Granted, it annoyed him beyond the telling of things, but I had the feeling that he was going to start following me anyway.

The hungry ghost had seemed to have vanished from the area. Not having Sam around was not only a serious downer emotionally, but it made things harder when it came to research. We watched the news and listened to the word on the street, which was entirely bare. We frequented bars like rats and still found nothing. Our sleep was nonexistent, so it wasn't as if we weren't trying.

Months passed. It was considerably colder and close to Christmas. I was walking down Madison Avenue in the middle of the night, hiding my head amongst the several others that were out, despite the late and very cold hour. It was a very bitter winter and I wouldn't have even been out if I hadn't been trying to ditch Dean. Although there was little snow, it was very cold. I had enjoyed his company, but he seemed to be expecting something more of me at the time, as if being the Slayer came with additional smarts with the strength.

I passed by several large stores, ones that were still open since it was the holiday season and people would still be willing to saunter the streets and give up their hard earned money. It had been easier to maintain what some may consider an income since being paired up with Dean. He was quite a gambler and had his way with extracting money from people in legal, although not always ethical, manners. In the old days, I would have frowned on such activities, but I didn't care anymore. Being able to eat and not having to sleep on the street was more important now.

Just as I was about to turn onto another street, I felt someone slam into my shoulder. Due to the non-abrasive nature of my boots, I slid on the ice and landed painfully on my back.

"What the hell…?" I winced, looking up at the man standing over me.

The man was dressed in very improper clothing. In such a temperature, his small pale hands should have been frozen solid. He also wore nothing but jeans and a t-shirt, which was turning some heads in it of itself. He was staring at me strangely.

"You're it? Jesus, you're nothing…"

"I'm…what? Who are you?"

I couldn't decide whether it would be easier to be angry or annoyed at that point. The pain in my back was subsiding, but I was rather pissed about the hell of a large bruise I would have the next day. That's when the man, who was one of those rather scraggly looking creatures that didn't look capable of harming a fly, transformed. His small pale blue eyes blackened to those of a demon and his diminutive stature appeared to grow.

"Oh, shit…" I muttered, leaping to my feet and miraculously not falling flat on my back again.

I threw him to the ground, something neither he nor those around us saw coming. There was an immense amount of pressure on his part when he tried to fight, but it was a futile effort.

"Hey, lady, what the hell is going on?" I heard a call from the crowd.

I always found it hysterical how people immediately jumped to the side of the girl in these situations. Never mind the fact that I had the man easily pinned down.

"Nothing!" I yelled back, wanting not to cause a scene, "We're just talking."

I yanked the thing to its feet and walked down the remainder of the street, away from the crowd. He was eager to get away from me, struggling the entire way. Just as I began to wonder exactly what I was going to do with him, I felt a tugging from the other side of him.

"Oh, it's you," I sighed, a touch relived.

Dean was holding the other side of the thing, gripping tightly into its quite possibly dead host's tiny shoulder. There appeared to be a reason to why he was moving in a given direction, so I simply followed him, figuring it the best thing to do. We walked with it for roughly six blocks before we found a parking ramp which housed the Impala.

"What makes you think it'll stay in here?"

"This," he said, matter-of-factly, pointing at the inside of the backseat.

Before I could see what he was pointing at, he heaved the creature into the back of the car. It made an unbearable hissing sound, something I wished I could block from my audible range.

"You're unreal, you know that?" I asked, the moment he peeled out of the ramp and onto the street. It was only a few minutes before he was on the highway, as he didn't give much attention to the traffic. The thing in the backseat was thrashing about, angry and spitting. I jabbed it in the teeth once to knock it back and surprisingly, it backed down.

"I can't believe you're following me."

"Would you quit with that? How many times do I need to tell you that you have to learn to trust me?"

The thing started in again with its unforgiving movements.

"Okay, that's it," he said, tearing from the highway and into a nearby empty field.

The countryside was nearly pitch black, only slightly illuminated by the moon. I was thrown about a foot into the dashboard when he slammed on the brakes. He was out of the car before I knew it and had dragged it out of the backseat and into the field, punching and kicking the whole way. When he pulled it out, I caught sight of a strange looking pentagram style design etched into the roof of the interior of the car.

"Is this the son of a bitch that killed Sam?"

_And all of my family and friends?_

"I highly doubt it. I'd probably be in worse shape right now if it was," I said, following him out of the car.

The demon was suddenly on its feet and threw Dean into the cold hard earth so hard that the sound made me flinch. As it made an effort to run, I tore after it and knocked it back to the ground.

"She's not here anymore, you know?" it sputtered in a pathetic manner before I had a chance to hit it again.

Seeing a demon cower was a strange sight, but this one was obviously a weakling by nature. That and it tended to roll over considerably easy.

"She?"

The black eyes had sunk back to those of humanity, but it remained within its host. The human eyes were suddenly very fearful. In the background, I could hear Dean hobbling towards us.

"You might as well tell us, you measly little fuck. I'm getting a little sick of having my insides broken apart, not to mention having my brother killed!" he shot at it, his voice rising.

He pulled a small flask from his jacket then and sprinkled what I guessed to be holy water on it. The thing screeched and rolled about on the ground. Dean grinned in what I could only consider to be quite a maniacal way.

"I didn't have anything to do with that! That was _her_!"

"Her…her who?" he screamed.

"I don't know her name! None of us do! She's just who she is!"

"Well, that's just fantastic. So tell us, where is she?"

There was actually a bit of reluctance in the human eyes of the soulless being. It was a rare sight. I was unable to tell if it felt that it would be disloyal by telling us, or if it was just imagining what would happen if the location was revealed.

"Give me that shit," I ordered, snatching the flask from his hand before he could tell what I was talking about. I opened it and began to pour it down the throat of the shaking monster lying on the ground. It shook horribly and foamed at the mouth. Had I not been nearly locking its mouth shut with my hand, I'm sure it's screams would have been heard throughout the entire Midwest.

"Hey, ease off," Dean tried ineffectively to pull me away from it, "that's a human in there somewhere."

"Not anymore. He's dead," I stated, not moving in the least.

I had no way of knowing that; it was just had a bad feeling. Finally, when I decided it had enough, I released it and it coughed up some kind of nasty black foam.

"New York…" it choked, "she's in New York…"

"Specific please."

"I don't know…she said she was headed to New York because of the population and the tourism. There's a lot to eat there…"

The voice that was strong back in the city was weaker than that of a small child then. The host's body had almost shriveled in nature as well. I crouched down beside it.

"You're not like her, are you?"

The human eyes looked away.

"Your host is dead. I'm right, aren't I?"

It didn't say another word. I turned back to Dean.

"You know how to kill demons, don't you?"

He nodded, his eyes wide.

"Then get rid of this thing. We have to go to New York."


End file.
